BlackBerry Z10 Gadget Review

There has never been more pressure on a single device than there is on the BlackBerry Z10.

This is the phone, along with its keyboard-wielding sibling, that must save BlackBerry, challenge Apple and stem the dominance of Google’s Android. It’s a phone that must surpass every expectation and achieve things that no user even contemplated a mobile phone could do. The chances of its success, on that basis at least, are zero. It can only disappoint.

So let’s start off by saying, trying to be objective, that the Z10 is a very good device. It is solidly built, with a slightly rubberised back and a 4.2” screen that is both sharp and detailed at 356DPI. Compare that to 326 for the iPhone. And the new features of this BlackBerry start in the very way you turn it on: where every other device demands that you press a button, the Z10 needs you just to swipe your finger up its screen.

There’s a lot of swiping in the new operating system, with BlackBerry implicitly saying that it’s no longer defined by a physical keyboard – as if to emphasise the size of the leap, BlackBerry has followed up the ‘BB7’ operating system with ‘BB10’.

Once the screen is on, swipe up to reveal a screen with tiles of active programmes you’re running, and then swipe right to reveal a peak at your ‘BlackBerry Hub’, a combined inbox that aggregates everything you’ve had from email, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and more.


The new BlackBerry received an average response from media, some early reviews were just bad.
BlackBerry needed to give users a reason to switch back from the iPhone or Samsung product they currently own — they didn’t do that. At most, they may have caught up to where everyone else already is, but they needed to do more if they planned to get back all of those customers.